Conspiracy theory researcher and debunker

End of the Line For the Clinton Gravy Train

While the rest of us are fixated on the Greatest World Series of All Time, Fox News, right wing talk radio, and conservative social media are pushing two scandals in an all-out effort to destroy Hillary Clinton’s presidency.

If you’re objecting by pointing out that Hillary Clinton is not actually the president, let me open a wormhole to a world where it’s easier and more lucrative to pretend she is.

Hence, two concurrent Biggest Scandals Ever being laid at the feet of Hillary Clinton:

As Secretary of State, she sold off America’s stock of precious uranium to the Russians in exchange for bribes (#UraniumOne)

As a presidential candidate, she colluded with the Russians to produce the phony fake news Steele Dossier (#TrumpDossier)

Either of these would be enough to bring down the non-existent Clinton presidency. But together…well, here’s former Trump adviser and literal Nazi sympathizer Sebastian Gorka explaining how they merit nothing less than Mrs. Clinton’s death in the electric chair:

When a man wearing a flag pin as big as his tie knot tells you something, it’s automatically true, right?

Conservatives pushed Donald Trump’s candidacy hard, but secretly, it would have been far better for them if he’d lost. A perfect example is former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who claimed that as Chair of the House Oversight Committee, he had “two years of investigations” of Hillary locked and loaded.

Sadly for Mr. Chaffetz, all that planning went for naught. Chaffetz responded by doing the honorable thing and resigning to join Fox News, where you can investigate anything you want, as long as Hillary Clinton is involved and you’re wearing a big flag pin.

Hillary Clinton is likely to leave the public stage soon. She’s done all the press for her book, and she’s not running for president again. Once she takes her final bow, literally DECADES of scandal-mongering will be obsolete. All those beautiful #LockHerUp memes? All those fake lists of people she and Bill have killed? All those faux scandals about land buys and travel vouchers and #Benghazi?

Washed away, like tears in rain.

Beyond that, Congress’ power to dream up crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and depose her about them is draining as well. Republicans are staring a historic beatdown in the 2018 midterms in the face. Many prominent Republicans see where things are going and are already headed toward the exits.

So a retiring Hillary plus a lost House mean the gravy train of Clinton scandal grifting is pulling into the station, never to chuff again.

Hence, we’ve got Fox News and Russian bots pushing two conspiracy theories, one which was debunked years ago, and the other which makes no sense.

To keep things short:

Uranium One refers to a deal made by the U.S. and approved by nine government agencies for Russia’s state-owned mining corporation to acquire a controlling stake in a Canadian mining firm that had licenses to mine uranium in the U.S. The State Department was one of those agencies, but the deal never got to Secretary Clinton, as it was too far below her level.

There’s never been any credible evidence that Clinton received any money for approving the deal, or that she actually approved the deal at all, or that a crime of any kind was committed anywhere in the process. Uranium One is a scandal in so far as it was something Hillary Clinton might have had something to do with and because Steve Bannon thinks so. That’s it. But two Congressional committees are apparently investigating it, because a year from now, they might be controlled by Democrats, and it’s now or never.

The Trump Dossier is the infamous dossier of material collected by a former British intelligence agent that points to massive, systemic links between Donald Trump and elements of the Russian government and intelligence apparatus. When the dossier became public in January, so too did its origin: it was initially funded by an unknown Republican presidential candidate, then by Democrats after that candidate dropped out. This week, the Washington Post broke news that those Democrats were actually the Democratic National Committee and people on the Clinton campaign.

Trump and his acolytes have insisted the entire time that the dossier is fake news and totally debunked, even though much of the dossier actually has been confirmed.

The revelation that the Clinton campaign paid for opposition research on Donald Trump (which is a thing literally every candidate for every major election does) then instantly morphed into an incoherent conspiracy theory that despite the dossier being fake news, it was created by Clinton herself, colluding with the Russians in an effort to win the election she actually lost.

If that sounds confusing, it’s because it makes zero sense. What did the Russians have to do with it at all? If the dossier is fake, why collude with the Russians to create it? Why not just…create it? And if the dossier is real, doesn’t it prove that Trump and the Russians are deeply intertwined, no matter who funded it?

Don’t think about it harder than that, because your brain cells are precious.

These incoherent, debunked, silly conspiracy theories are not what’s going to send Hillary to prison or Ol’ Sparky. They’re the last embers of a fire that’s been stoked by conservative media since the early 90s.